There has been an alarming rise in the occurrence of disease-causing microbes that have become resistant to drug therapy. This antibiotic resistance is largely due to increased use of antibiotics and the remarkable resiliency of pathogenic organisms that have developed ways to survive the drugs that are meant to target them. Pneumonia, tuberculosis, malaria, and ear infections are just a few of the diseases that have become difficult to treat with our current arsenal of antibiotic drugs. All FDA-approved antibiotics that are currently in use are organic molecules. The principal endogenous non-immunological anti-microbial agent in the secretions of human exocrine glands such as saliva, tears, and milk is an inorganic electrophilic thiocyanating agent commonly referred to as “hypothiocyanite” (OSCN−).
There is an enzymic method for synthesizing hypothiocyanite, and there are some products on the market that are based upon this technology. The only conventional chemical method for synthesizing hypothiocyanite is based upon the synthesis of thiocyanogen in halogenated hydrocarbon solvents using salts of lead (reagents that are highly toxic and/or carcinogenic).
Hypothiocyanite is synthesized in vivo by oxidation of thiocyanate (SCN−) by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) in a reaction that is catalyzed by peroxidase enzymes (including LPO, MPO, EPO, and SPO). However, these enzymes are not effective catalysts under the conditions that hypothiocyanite is relatively stable (above pH=8). The use of uncatalyzed oxidants, according to the literature, do not oxidize thiocyanate to give hypothiocyanite. The only non-enzymatic method of synthesizing hypothiocyanite in the literature involves hydrolysis of thiocyanogen, a compound that is typically prepared in an expensive process that involves metathesis of the toxic heavy-metal salt Pb(SCN)2 with Br2 in the carcinogenic solvent carbon tetrachloride. It would be desirable to have a method of hypothiocyanite production which did not involve complex enzymatic steps or the use of toxic heavy metal salts. It is to such a process that the present invention is directed.